


indefinitely indisposed

by LTRisBACK



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 'catted' Aziraphale, Other, Snake!Crowley - Freeform, bastard aziraphale, cuteness, rude customer, taking care of each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26190718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LTRisBACK/pseuds/LTRisBACK
Summary: My naem is snekand wen I lieon angel thighscustomer cryHe will not movetheir shit they loosebut he dont caream good excuseorAziraphale sighed when he heard the bell on the shop door bell tinkle.  He had meant to lock the door about an hour ago, but an hour before that Crowley had slithered his way onto the couch, draped himself over and around Aziraphale, hissed a sigh and fallen asleep.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 143





	indefinitely indisposed

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the AceOmens Discord for inspiring yet another fun one-shot. Particular thanks to @Nenchen for writing the poem for the summary! Such fun, thanks friend :)

Aziraphale sighed when he heard the bell on the shop door bell tinkle. He had meant to lock the door about an hour ago, but an hour before that Crowley had slithered his way onto the couch, draped himself over and around Aziraphale, hissed a sigh and fallen asleep. 

He watched from the couch as the man walked into the shop, stopping to view the bookshelves at various points, reaching out and, Aziraphale glared, taking books off the shelves. He would glance at whatever volume it was in a horrifyingly cursory manner, then either shove it back onto the shelf or stack it in his arms. 

Aziraphale was growing more and more irate the longer he watched, but he couldn’t bring himself to move and disturb his sleeping demon. Crowley had been absolutely exhausted when he arrived at the shop earlier after a week away, and Aziraphale was determined to allow him to sleep. He really wished that he’d thought to actually just lock the door by miracle earlier. 

The man stopped in the middle of the shop and looked around, clearly trying to find someone to serve him. Aziraphale is tempted to do nothing, but the thought that he might just decide to walk out with the books forces him to do something to draw attention to himself. He cleared his throat, and the man jumped, whirling towards the couch. 

“Ah, there you are.” The unctuous tone put Aziraphale’s back up immediately. He sounded like a mix of Sandalphon and Gabriel, which was not a positive thing in any way, shape or form. “I wish to buy these books. Why on Earth would you not put all the parts of a series together, are you that incompetant?” 

Aziraphale wanted to snarl at him. Instead, he concentrated for a brief moment. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid those books are not for sale,” he declared, his tone far less irate than he was feeling. The man looked down at the books he had stacked haphazardly in his arms and scowled.

“There are price tags right...they were right here!” the man turned one of the books, as though it would make the tag on it change from ‘available for in-store reference’ back into a very high price tag. He huffed and thumped the volumes down on the nearest table, and this time Aziraphale did growl. 

“Those are incredibly valuable volumes, if you wish to be permitted to remain in this store you will treat them with respect.” The icy tones in no way matched up to Aziraphale’s now forcibly relaxed pose. He was absolutely determined that he would not disturb Crowley’s rest. 

The man huffed and headed into the stacks, Aziraphale listening carefully to track his position in the shop. A quiet snap had the bad smell in the shop amped up, the uncomfortable ‘someone is watching you’ atmosphere set to eleven, and the level of dust (not on the books, of course) but all around them increased markedly. It was miraculously sticky when it came to attaching to customers.

Several minutes of barely muttered complaints, loud footsteps and the sound of books being removed from shelves later the man emerged. He was looking far less put together than he had when he entered. He was once again holding a rather haphazardly stacked armful of books. 

“Oi!” He’d also clearly completely misplaced any manners he possessed somewhere between the shelves. “These ones are for sale, and I want to buy them.” 

“My good sir, as you can see, I am quite clearly indisposed. Catted, you might say. I cannot possibly rise and assist you at this time, I must insist you depart and return another day.” 

The books hit the counter with a loud thud, and Aziraphale barely contained his flinch at the rough handling. This man would definitely not be leaving with any of his books, he was determined. Even as he thought this, the man was storming towards where Aziraphale sat on the couch. He obviously hadn’t taken a good look earlier when Aziraphale had spoken to him, but when he suddenly froze and jerked backwards, eyes going wide, Aziraphale knew he’d finally seen what was actually on the couch. 

“That...is not a cat,” the man finally managed to say, voice several octaves above where it had been previously. “That is very much not a cat. I don’t think that’s even a snake, what on earth…” 

“Do you want to tell him he’s not a cat?” Aziraphale inquired, curious. 

The would-be customer stopped, seemingly taken aback by the question. After a moment he shook his head hard and could be seen forcing himself to calm down. “I want to buy these books. You run a shop, and if you do not come and assist me you will receive a review that will keep anyone from ever setting foot in this shop again.” 

“I will not,” Aziraphale snapped, done with this now. He had been quite polite, really, and now the man had whatever happened coming to him. “You will leave these premises, immediately, and I will consider whether or not to issue you with a lifetime ban for your terrible manners and inability to actually care for books.” 

The man drew himself taller while at the same time seeming to puff up, drawing even stronger associations between himself and the Archangels he resembled. 

“If you’re not going to get up, what’s to stop me just taking them, then, eh? Or even these ones?” he snatched up one of the books he had initially been interested in, waving it around by a corner in a careless fashion. Aziraphale’s eyes flashed, and he shifted just slightly on the couch, but the slight squeeze and relief of the body wrapped around his and also over the couch was all that it took to get him to hold still again. He couldn’t disturb Crowley, not with how he had looked when he got back to the shop. Aziraphale wasn’t entirely sure where he had spent the last week, but he clearly hadn’t been sleeping. 

The man was rapidly piling his books up, and Aziraphale raised a hand, preparing to click when a sudden flurry of movement surrounded him as Crowley left the couch in a rush, hissing so loudly it almost sounded like a growl. The man yelped loudly, dropping the books, several of them crashing to the floor as he turned and bolted for the door. The door swung shut so closely on his heels that it actually knocked him off his feet and out onto the pavement. By the time he turned, the door was also locked, the sign turned to closed and, from the exterior, all lights had apparently been extinguished. 

“Forget writing a review, I’m calling ANIMAL CONTROL!” With that last yelled threat the man turned and stormed away up the street. He pulled his phone from his pocket, only to find that it had apparently bricked itself sometime since he had last had it out. He reached his car only to find that his central locking had apparently stopped working, presumably because the battery was flat, and by the time he had made it home there had been sufficient other inconveniences (his roadside assist had apparently expired, his credit card was blocked, and apparently he’d gotten change in counterfeit bills when he’d paid with cash earlier in the day and had had to beg his neighbour for some cash to pay the taxi that had brought him home) he was exhausted enough that the memory of what exactly had happened at Fells being blurry didn’t seem that odd. He did remember that he had no desire to go back, though. 

Meanwhile, back in the worst bookshop (but best book repository) in Soho, an extremely large snake hissed its way grumpily back across to the couch and climbed up to reclaim its seat and its angel. Crowley settled his coils around him in a manner that clearly conveyed his sulk, and Aziraphale chuckled. 

“Thank you very much, my dear,” he ran a gentle finger over the delicate scales on Crowley’s head and he sighed, settling down again. “That’s right, my love, you sleep,” Aziraphale soothed, settling back on the couch. With a quiet snap of his fingers he brought the books that had nearly been stolen over to sit in a neat stack on the side table, then he settled in to read until Crowley was ready to wake up again.


End file.
